When I worked as an environmental engineering intern (many eons ago) we where
specifically forbidden to speak to the press. Same goes for my wife who works
for the sate health lab downtown. Although our Official news liaisons always
managed to mess things up I even remember someone (one of our testing
people) getting in trouble for suggesting the media relations people may have
been wrong when they said a facility (that was in metro Phoenix) was not
actually in Tucson, as the media relations people reported to the Arizona
Republic With representatives like that I am often glad the news finds people
in the grocery store :) Their information is probably more reliable but I'm
a cynic ;)
On Wed, 26 Jan 2005, Jeff Garland wrote:
>
> > But with good reason! There seems to be a very high amount of scare
> > mongering about this issue. I can't say I'm surprised since the
> > mass media has *never* been good about accessing any kind of
> > relative risks... but still.
>
> Totally agree -- in fact, the scarier it is, the better for the news. In
> fact, I'm pretty certain that the news only presents the most 'extreme' risks,
> because they are the ones that get ratings. I read that more people died from
> 'bad-water' supplies in Asia last year then in the Tsunami, but that doesn't
> make the news because it happens a few at a time. This isn't a risk, but it
> goes to the point of the distorted picture you can get from the media: Did
> you know that in the presidential election the final vote count was closer in
> Pennsylvania than Ohio? But, of course, it is Ohio that is always discussed
> as the swing state that was "so close"....
>
> > Here's the issue in a nut-shell:
> >
> > Due, probably, to the recent storms, the water in Phoenix had a
> > higher percentage of sediment (dirt) than it should have. Federal
> > limit is roughly 1 part per billion, the water Tuesday afternoon was
> > over 2 ppb. Sediment can contain potentially dangerous microbes
> > and if THAT was the case, then it might have been bad. But it
> > wasn't the case. This was 'clean' dirt, if you will.
>
> Actually, I understood that the problem is that turbid water (full of
> sediment) cuts the effectiveness of chlorine used to kill bacteria in the
> water. But in any case, you might find these pages interesting reading:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbidity
> http://ga2.er.usgs.gov/bacteria/helpturbidity.cfm
>
> I really, really, really, really wish when something like this happens a
> chemist that actually understands all the measurements would be put on TV to
> explain exactly what they are measuring for and exactly what it means.
> Instead we have the news people filming the grocery store and saying clever
> stuff like "many more people bought bottled water today than usual"....
>
> Jeff
>
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